Personally, I prefer the word slum. Ghetto has a restrictive connotation; sort of like gated community. Still, the persistent references to the slums of Baghdad, where the Mahdi Army was supposedly holed up and which justified the sending in of American howitzers and tanks has been one of the most unsettling aspects of the Iraq invasion and occupation.
Then, the revelation that our own Defense Advanced Projects Research Agency (DARPA) was focused on developing new tools for urban guerrilla warfare proved to be downright disconcerting.
Now it turns out that may all have been for naught.
While it's been my own opinion, as stated in acomment just the other day that:
The whole issue of people killing people in the United States is shrouded in a bunch of myths. Not the least of which is that residential densities promote or retard crime. We have spent more than three decades thinning out the cities and relocating people to the suburbs and still the rate at which Americans kill other Americans has hardly gone down. Not to mention the rate at which we kill "them" over there so we won't have to kill "them" over here.
Who are the "them?" DARPA thinks it's people who inhabit urbs. After all, that's why they're practicing urban guerrilla warfare in Iraq. That's why conservatives are concerned that Barack Obama has an urban bias.
now there's evidence from other quarters. As the Boston Globe reports today:
No one denies that slums - also known as shantytowns, squatter cities, and informal settlements - have serious problems. They are as a rule overcrowded, unhealthy, and emblems of profound inequality. But among architects, planners, and other thinkers, there is a growing realization that they also possess unique strengths, and may even hold lessons in successful urban development....
In a recent speech, Prince Charles of England, who founded an organization called the Foundation for the Built Environment, praised Dharavi (which he visited in 2003) for its "underlying, intuitive 'grammar of design' " and "the timeless quality and resilience of vernacular settlements."
....
He echoes development specialists and slum dwellers themselves in arguing that slums have assets along with their obvious shortcomings. Their humming economic activity and proximity to city centers represent big advantages over the subsistence farming that many slum dwellers have fled. Numerous observers have noted the enterprising spirit of these places, evident not only in their countless tiny businesses, but also in the constant upgrading and expansion of homes. Longstanding slum communities tend to be much more tightknit than many prosperous parts of the developed world, where neighbors hardly know one another. Indeed, slums embody many of the principles frequently invoked by urban planners: They are walkable, high-density, and mixed-use, meaning that housing and commerce mingle. Consider too that the buildings are often made of materials that would otherwise be piling up in landfills, and slums are by some measures exceptionally ecologically friendly. Some countries have begun trying to mitigate the problems with slums rather than eliminate the slums themselves.
It's long been my contention that the only real difference between the high rise apartment towers constructed on Third Avenue in Manhattan and the sterile project blocks further up the island lay in the level of services provided. When lots of people live close together, it's critical that basic housekeeping functions be well managed and equitably provided. After all, if they're not, then all the benefits of economies of scale are lost.
But then, that's what's been lacking generally in American cities, hasn't it--an appreciation for the economies of scale. Instead, we've spent the last thirty years trying to spread people out so they would need to be self-serving. What a waste!
Not to mention that importing gated communities to the cradle of civilization has to be one of the prime examples of ignorance of all time!